I was fortunate enough to be admitted earlier this week to PhD programs in Health Policy at Stanford and Harvard, the decision science track for both schools.
I went into this process with a research question in mind, and during my interviews I was asked (read: grilled) about my topic and why it was appropriate for decision science and not economics, for example. I think that being purposeful, specific (I applied to three schools), and demonstrating that I was reading and thinking about the discipline outside of my day job in population health was a boon to my application. In several interviews I talked about how things I had recently read had shaped my thinking, even when the books weren't specific to health policy ("Thinking, Fast and Slow", "Mountains Beyond Mountains", random articles I had read).
I did reach out to professors before submitting and followed up when they recommended other faculty to talk to. When it came to the statement, I tried to answer three questions: "Why this?," "Why now?," "Why me?" I wanted the committee to want to meet me, not necessarily by having an intriguing background but by posing interesting questions. Naturally many of my interviews challenged me about the questions I posed in my statement. In hindsight, I don't think they expected me to have the right answers (that's what the PhD is for!) but to demonstrate my willingness to wrestle with them and engage intellectually.
Let me know if you have any questions. I'm very excited to think about healthcare fulltime, free from my corporate obligations! ?